Sorcerers of the Nightwing (Book One - The Ravenscliff Series) Read online

  But that wasn’t true: at least not about Devon. He knew some things simply couldn’t be explained, that there did exist a realm of … of … Something Else. When he was a boy, fearful of the monsters in his closet, his father hadn’t soothed him with assurances that such things didn’t exist. How could he, when Devon at six had already witnessed a slimy, hairy creature crawl out of his closet and try to bite off both their heads? Rather, Dad had comforted him by telling him that he was stronger than any demon, that his powers were deep and rare.

  Rare they certainly were, for they came and went with a frustrating frequency. In times of crisis—like demon invasions of his bedroom, for example, or the time Dad nearly fell off the ladder painting the house—they never failed. In those cases, Devon always managed to save the day thanks to his mysterious powers. But when he tried to impress a girl by lifting a barbell with only his mind, forget it.

  In fact, Devon’s powers seemed to have a will of their own, sometimes fading away, other times popping out with no warning. Like that day in WalMart, when he wasn’t more than seven, when he’d wanted that anime video game so bad. It had risen off the shelf and floated across the aisle, dropping into Devon’s book bag. He hadn’t stolen it; it had simply followed him home. Devon was as surprised as Dad when he found it later that night among his books.

  Then there was the time Mrs. Grayson had punished him for talking in class. She was a nasty old sow, a shriveled apple of a woman everyone despised. She made Devon turn his desk around the opposite way, facing the back wall. Mortified—Devon hated being singled out from the rest—he wished with all his might that he wasn’t the only one so punished. Suddenly, every desk in the class turned around to match Devon’s. Snarly old Mrs. Grayson practically had a coronary up there by the chalkboard.

  Yet other than the powers and the demons—not insignificant exceptions, Devon admitted—he was like any other kid his age. At least he had been before he was sent away. He’d hung out with his friends, listened to music, watched TV, played video games. He’d been a good student and had lots of friends. He wasn’t the most popular kid in school, but he certainly wasn’t unpopular.

  All that had changed when his father had died less than a month ago. Ted March had had a heart attack shortly before and had been confined to his bed. “You’ll get better, Dad,” Devon had insisted.

  His father just smiled. “I’m a very, very old man, Devon.”

  “Dad, you’re only in your fifties.” He looked at his father intently. “That’s not so old.”

  His father had just smiled and closed his eyes.

  Dad lingered less than a month. He tried to rally but never found the strength. Devon found him one morning, just as the sun was breaking over the horizon. Dad had died quietly in his sleep, alone. Devon just sat there for an hour at the side of his father’s bed, stroking his cold hand and letting the tears run down his cheeks. Only then did he telephone Mr. McBride, Dad’s lawyer, and give him the news.

  How quickly his old life had been replaced. Practically all Devon had left from that old life was Dad’s medal. It was silver on one side, with an engraving of a flying owl, and copper on the other side, with an image of a lady dressed in a long robe. The medal had once jangled among the coins in his father’s pocket, always at ready grasp. His father had called it a talisman. When Devon had asked what a talisman was, his father had smiled and said, “Just call it my good luck charm.”

  All the way up to Misery Point, Devon had kept reaching down into his pocket to cup the medal in his hand. The medal gave him a connection to the father he missed more than he could possibly express. Devon still woke up in the mornings expecting Dad to be out in the kitchen frying bacon and eggs for breakfast. He still expected Max to be panting eagerly in the hallway, wanting to go for a walk. For a terrible second every morning when he opened his eyes, Devon would forget everything that had happened the past few weeks: the funeral, the lawyers, the reading of the will—especially the startling confession Dad had made on his deathbed.

  But quickly it always came rushing back: Dad was dead, Max had gone to live with Devon’s friend Tommy, and the topper of them all: Dad hadn’t even been his real father. Devon had been adopted. That’s what Dad had told him right before he died. That bit of knowledge proved to be even harder to absorb than the fact that Dad was dead.

  “I may not have been your blood,” his father told him in a soft, weak voice, his frail body propped up with pillows, “but always know that I loved you as my own son.”

  Devon had been unable to respond.

  “I’m sending you to live with a family in Maine. Trust me, Devon. They will know what’s best for you.”

  “Dad, why did you never tell me before?”

  His father smiled sadly. “It was for the best, Devon. I know I ask a lot when I ask you to just trust me, but you do, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do, Dad.” Devon felt the tears push forward and drop, hot and stinging, one by one down his cheeks. “Dad, you can’t die. Please. Don’t leave me alone. The demons may come back. And I still don’t understand why.”

  “You’re stronger than any of them, Devon. Remember that.”

  “But, Dad, why am I this way? You said I’d understand someday. You can’t die without telling me the truth. Please, Dad! Does what I am have something to do with who I am? With my real parents?”

  Dad tried to answer, but found he couldn’t. He just closed his eyes and settled back into his pillows. He died that night.

  After the will was read, Dad’s lawyer, old Mr. McBride, told Devon that guardianship had been left to a woman named Mrs. Amanda Muir Crandall, way out on the rocky coast of Maine—in a place called Misery Point.

  You’ll find no one there but ghosts.

  Ah—but they are your ghosts, the Voice in his head told him.

  The old woman beside him on the bus had kept her distance the rest of the way. Devon had concentrated on the landscape rolling by outside his window. He’d watched as the day deepened from its heavy blue, threatening rain into a wet violet, blurring like an amateur watercolor. By the time he’d arrived in Misery Point, mist was speckling his window, and Devon had looked out into the dampness with a growing ache of loneliness.

  “You’re nearly a man,” Mr. McBride had told him when he’d put him on the bus.

  Nearly a man, Devon thought. He knew he’d passed innocence a long time ago—the first time the eyes in his closet turned out to be real, in fact—but he still felt very young and very alone riding that bus.

  Dad …

  In the reflection of the window he tried to remember his father’s face.

  How can I face them without you? How can I learn everything I need to understand? How can I find out who I really am?

  Thunder crackled, and suddenly the sky opened. The earth was all at once bombarded by rain. Devon slid quickly into the Porsche next to the man he was convinced held some of the answers he sought.

  “The name’s Rolfe Montaigne,” the man said, reaching over to shake Devon’s hand.

  “Devon March,” the boy replied.

  Raindrops pounded on the roof of the car like hundreds of tiny tap dancers each in a race to see who was fastest. In the dry interior, Devon found the smell of the leather soothing, the soft supple seat seeming to embrace him as he settled into his space. The heat was gone, the pressure lifted. He rested his head back and closed his eyes.

  Montaigne flicked on the wipers and shifted into reverse, looking over his shoulder as he began backing the car up once more.

  “Looks as if we made it just in time,” he said. “It’s supposed to get pretty bad tonight. You haven’t seen a storm till you’ve seen one at Misery Point.”

  “Guess that’s where the name comes from, huh?”

  “That and a few other things.” Montaigne headed the car out onto the road. “So where are you headed?”

  Devon opened his eyes and looked over at him. “It’s a house called Ravenscliff. Do you know it? Can you drop
me there?”

  “Do I know it?” Montaigne looked over at him sharply. “Kid, I wouldn’t drive you up to Ravenscliff if I had garlic around my car windows and a crucifix on my dashboard.”

  Devon smirked. “Um, so that’d be a no?”

  “What are you going to Ravenscliff for?”

  Devon wasn’t sure he should answer. The man might have answers, but whether he could be trusted or not, the Voice hadn’t yet revealed. “Look,” Devon said, “if you don’t want to drive up there—”

  Montaigne shook his head, a smirk creeping across his lips. “I’ll take you as far as the Borgo Pass. You can get a cab there.”

  “Very funny,” Devon said. “I get the references. I’ve read Dracula. Borgo Pass. Garlic. What is it about this place? Why’s everyone scared of it?”

  “It is Walpurgis night,” Montaigne said, laughing, mock blessing himself with his free hand. He winked over at Devon. “Nosferatu.”

  “You don’t scare me, man.”

  “I don’t?” Rolfe asked, grinning over at him, white teeth in the dark. “You sure?”

  Devon gave him the most unimpressed face he could muster. Maybe he ought to be scared of this guy, but he was sure not going to show it.

  The man laughed, and Devon turned to look out onto the watery streets, the rain distorting his view through the glass. The street beyond was a river of blues and reds and yellows, cast in shadows, the neon of storefronts reflecting crazily.

  Silence fell over the car after that, the only sounds the swish of the wipers against the glass and the pounding rain on the roof. The highway rose and became a bridge over a large body of water and Devon could feel the force of the high wind. Montaigne had to struggle a bit to keep the car on a straight path. Finally, they arrived onto a long narrow stretch of land. Devon knew from looking at a map earlier that Misery Point sat at the end of a long rocky peninsula, jutting out from the coast into the Atlantic Ocean. Wind and water pelted the car windows. He heard again Mr. McBride’s brittle laugh. Why do you think it’s called Misery Point?

  The swaying beams of the Porsche’s headlights cut into the stormy blackness of the crooked road ahead, revealing little but hostile barren branches that reach out across the road. Devon felt almost mesmerized watching them.

  “Not that it’s any of my business,” Montaigne said, breaking the uneasy silence, “but is your business at Ravenscliff brief?”

  “Not very.” Devon looked over at him, deciding to try the truth. “It’s only, like, permanent.” He waited a beat. “I’m going there to live.”

  “Live? You’re going there to live?”

  “Well, I certainly hope I’m not going there to die.”

  Montaigne didn’t reply. He just looked over at Devon as if the idea was not really so farfetched.

  Devon wrestled down a shudder. “My father just died,” he explained, “and guardianship was left to the lady who lives at Ravenscliff. A Mrs. Crandall.”

  Montaigne had returned his eyes to the road. The rain was coming down more furiously now. “Are you a relative?” he asked.

  “Not that I’m aware. All my dad told me was that Mrs. Crandall would know what was best for me.”

  “Curious.” Montaigne seemed to roll the information over in his mind. “Mighty curious indeed.”

  They had come to a red light, which seemed to swim in the watery darkness beyond the windshield. Montaigne looked over at the boy.

  “I’m sorry about your father,” he said.

  Devon looked away. He couldn’t reply.

  “I know what it’s like,” Montaigne told him. “I lost my father when I was eight.”

  The light changed. They appeared to be driving through the center of the village. White clapboard shops, many with their windows boarded up for the season.

  “So why do you say it’s curious?” Devon asked. “Do you know the people who live at Ravenscliff?”

  The windshield wipers screeched like angry sea birds. “Oh, yes,” the man replied quietly, “I know them. Very well.”

  Devon noted the sarcasm in his voice, but another idea had just occurred to him. “Maybe you knew my father then, too,” he inquired. “Ted March.”

  Montaigne considered the name. “Ted March. No, sorry. I’ve lived here in Misery Point most of my life, except for a few years when I was out making my fortune. But I can’t say I recall anybody by that name.” He smiled. “But, then, Amanda Muir Crandall has lots of secrets. If your father said he knew her, I don’t doubt him.”

  The man looked over at Devon again. His eyes were deeply set and shone a brilliant green, even here in the darkened car.

  He knows, the Voice told Devon again.

  But what? There was history behind Montaigne’s words, a history Devon was certain could answer many of his own questions. Yet for all of what he might know, Rolfe Montaigne also troubled Devon, even if he couldn’t figure out exactly why. Certainly he felt none of the heat here in Montaigne’s car, none of the ominous pressure that signaled the demons were close.

  “How do you know Mrs. Crandall?” Devon asked.

  “I’m an old friend,” Rolfe said. “You make sure you give her my regards.”

  Devon didn’t need an extrasensory Voice to tell him that was more sarcasm.

  The car splashed through a deep gut in the road, but Rolfe Montaigne didn’t seem to notice. “So you’ll have to transfer to school here,” he observed.

  “Yeah. That’s probably the worst part. I hate being the new kid.”

  “What year are you in?”

  “I’m a sophomore,” Devon told him.

  Montaigne nodded. “Did you talk with Mrs. Crandall at all before coming up here?”

  “No,” Devon said. “My father’s lawyer did. I haven’t had any communication with her at all. I do know she has a daughter my age.”

  “Oh, yes. Cecily.” Montaigne smiled. “And then there’s the nephew. Surely you know about Alexander.”

  “No,” Devon admitted.

  “An eight-year-old.” Montaigne lifted his eyebrows over at him, and once more his white teeth flashed in the dark. “You like kids?”

  “Don’t have anything particular against them.”

  Montaigne laughed. “After you meet little Alexander, you might rethink that idea.”

  He turned the wheel and headed abruptly off the road, into a parking lot beside a large white house. A sign swung ferociously in the wind, engraved with old Gothic letters: stormy harbor. The tires of the car crunched gravel before coming to a stop.

  “Here we are,” Montaigne said, smiling strangely across at Devon. “The Borgo Pass. You can get a cab here to take you up to the house.”

  “Thanks for the ride,” Devon said, turning to open the door.

  “Not yet.” Montaigne reached across the boy to snap the car door’s lock into place. “Not so fast.”

  Rolfe Montaigne’s face was suddenly no more than four inches from Devon’s.

  “Next time,” Montaigne whispered menacingly, “you ought to think twice about who you accept rides from. Anybody could have told you to stay away from Rolfe Montaigne. They could have told you that Rolfe Montaigne served five years in prison—for killing a young boy just like you.”

  The House on the Hill

  “Back off,” Devon said in a small, hushed voice.

  Rolfe Montaigne laughed. “Sorry, kid. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

  He leaned back into his seat and Devon exhaled. The boy’s hands were tightly drawn into fists, prepared to have used whatever power he might have summoned.

  “You totally did mean to scare me,” Devon told Montaigne.

  The man was looking over at him. “Just figured you were going to start hearing all sorts of scary stories about me, especially up there at Ravenscliff. Figured I’d let you hear it from me first.”

  Devon swallowed. “Did you really kill—?”

  “You ask Mrs. Crandall to give you the whole story.” Montaigne opened his car door and stepped outsi
de. In seconds he was opening Devon’s door, shielding him from the rain with an umbrella. “I’m sure the mistress of Ravenscliff will be only too happy to give you all the details.”

  Devon squinted into the rainy darkness, trying to make sense of the place.

  Montaigne gestured up at the storm clouds. “Welcome,” he said, “to Misery Point.”

  The murky yellow light of the windows of Stormy Harbor burned through the rain. Devon and Montaigne hurried inside, where the older man shook his umbrella and headed without any further word off to a back room. Devon stood by himself, looking around. The place was dark, paneled in deep brown wood, hung with fishing nets and life preservers. The floorboards were uneven, warped from decades of sea air. A few tables with kerosene lamps were scattered across the floor; two craggy old men sat against a far wall drinking beer and smoking pipes.

  Lining the front wall was a bar edged with stools. Devon sidled onto one, attracting the attention of the bartender. She was a plump young woman with close cut red hair, a dimple in her chin and a gold hoop through her left eyebrow. Somehow her appearance reassured Devon. Someone with an eyebrow piercing couldn’t be as weird as Rolfe Montaigne.

  “What’ll it be?” the bartender asked.

  “Coffee,” Devon told her.

  She poured him a cup. “Here ya go. Ain’t a fit night out for—ah, you know the rest.”

  Devon smiled. “Well, it certainly is beastly out there.”

  “You new in town?”

  “Yes,” Devon replied, sipping the coffee “Just arrived tonight.”

  “Where from?”

  “New York.”

  “Really now?” She leaned forward. “You’re a big city boy.”

  “Not Manhattan,” he said. “From upstate.”

  “Oh.” The bartender folded her arms across her rather large chest. “So what brings you all the way out to Misery Point, at the end of nowhere?”

  “I’m going to live with a family here. At Ravenscliff. Do you know the place?”

  There it was again, Devon realized: that look. The same look the old woman had given him on the bus; the same that crossed Rolfe Montaigne’s face in the car.